


page two

by inmylife



Series: our page [2]
Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), 乐华七子NEXT | NEX7
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 19:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19892848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmylife/pseuds/inmylife
Summary: (just focus on the present tense / walk slowly and you'll see the light)





	page two

**Author's Note:**

> zhu zhengting in part one is my self insert: the fic  
> sidenote i've never been to pride so that scene is entirely based off of, like, other people's fics set at pride lmao. an also sense8.  
> summary from nex7 - wait a minute

_ a bookstore receipt _

Zhengting does a year in Korea. 

He goes by Jung Jung, for the hell of it, experimenting for the first time with being not-girl, and he attaches himself to one of the commuter students, a very pretty person named Ren who has long hair and wears skirts and still isn’t a girl and Zhengting likes that, because he likes makeup and earrings but he hates words like “woman” and “she”, they just feel wrong in his mouth and punch his body in all the wrong places. 

“Sometimes I think you’re more my parent than my parents are,” he confesses to Ren one day, on a bench outside the campus bookstore where neither of them had bought anything. It had rained earlier, hard for fifteen minutes and then suddenly stopped, and the bench is still wet with droplets under Zhengting’s pants. The sun’s out now, though. 

Ren hums, eir voice soft and a source of comfort to Zhengting. They have one class together, a dance class, that Ren’s taking for eir PE requirement and that Zhengting’s taking for fun, and over the course of the semester Zhengting’s become oddly used to trailing Ren to the dining hall after or dragging em into a study room in the library and just venting. About gender fuckery, about his parents, about how much he misses his kid sister. Or sometimes about dumber stuff, about language mishaps or the cute boy who’s friends with his roommate or the person on the floor above him who seems to jump on their bed at four in the morning (or worse). 

Zhengting goes home in two weeks. Whatever home means anymore. 

“I’m glad I can be that for you,” ey say. “Someone you can rely on.” 

Zhengting is one of those people that loves hard. He’s  _ mom friend _ back in China, the type who squishes cheeks and wraps semi-willing younger kids up into tight hugs and goes on rants at three in the morning about how much he loves people. He throws his heart and his soul into his friends, and Ren is one of those people to whom Zhengting could give and give until there was nothing left and then he’d beg borrow steal until he could keep on giving. 

Ren isn’t that kind of person. Ren’s loving, sure, but ey’re a little different about showing it. Ey enjoy being  _ mom _ (or  _ dad _ , ey don’t care too much) and are always available as a shoulder to lean on, not just to Zhengting but to the other queer following that ey’ve amassed over the course of their four years here, but ey don’t love eir ‘kids’ the same all-consuming way that Zhengting loves his. It makes Zhengting worry about being clingy. 

(Zhengting knows that they have different love languages and that’s all it comes down to, really. He’s just paranoid.)

“Yeah,” he says, and then stops. He and Ren have a habit of falling into long, lapsing silences, and Zhengting is never sure if he’s supposed to break the silence or if they’re supposed to be comfortable in it. Right now is one of those moments, staring at the sky and at the clouds gathering (again) off the horizon, behind the social sciences building. 

Zhengting has never been good at silence. He says, “I’ve been thinking about names.”

“Hmm?” says Ren, settling an arm around Zhengting’s shoulder. Zhengting scooches in closer. 

“Yeah. I kinda like Theo.” 

“Theo,” Ren repeats quietly, turning the syllables over and over in eir mouth.

He bursts into tears. 

“What - oh, hey, Jung Jung, what’s up?” Ren immediately bends down around him, face etched with concern. Zhengting hurts inside. He just… he loves Ren a lot, and he’s gonna miss em, and he misses em already even though ey’re right here next to him, and he doesn’t know how to say this without coming across as a clingy baby even though that’s what he is. He loves em so much that it hurts him inside.

This is hard. Change is hard, moving on is hard, growing up is hard. And Zhengting really doesn’t want to go back to China. 

“I just miss you,” he says, burying his face into Ren’s chest. Ey’re tall enough that Zhengting can do that - ey’re the perfect height for Zhengting to do it, actually. This is yet another thing that Zhengting will miss. Head-burying joins offers-of-chocolate and cool-facts-as-distraction and emotional-support and holding-hands-across-dining-hall-booths on the List Of Things That Zhengting Will Miss About Ren. 

Ren’s hands wrap their way around Zhengting’s back, rubbing gently up and down. Ren’s good at hugs. Zhengting chokes down the urge to cry harder. “Oh.” 

They stay like that for a while. Then, Zhengting takes a deep breath, and mumbles, “sorry.”

“Don’t be,” answers Ren. “Don’t ever be.”

_ a piece of cardboard box _

It’s not thundering outside yet, but Ren can see the lightning from someplace else’s storm out eir window. Ey have one of the smallest rooms in the Love Lane house, one with green-blue-grey painted walls and ceilings low enough that Minhyun, who is tall, can’t stand up straight in some places, enclosing just enough space for a king size bed and some wall-to-wall carpet and two dressers taking up an entire wall between them and a little bit of walking space in between. Not what most people would expect to be eir style, but. Ren does love fucking with people’s expectations. 

It is a dark and stormy night. It is possible that Ren is the only one awake, and someone is pounding at their door. 

Ey go downstairs. Eir uncharacteristically tiny little room is on the second floor, where there is not so much a hallway as there is a landing and two bedrooms on the sides of the landing where stairs are not. The stairs have a kind of rickety vibe to them - everyone knows, really, that the stairs are stable and they don’t actually make any noise or creak but maybe it’s the narrowness of them or the ornate railing or just the generally Weasley-Burrow-esque sense that the house has about it with its oddly many bedrooms and occasionally questionable architecture that makes everyone believe that the stairs  _ should _ make creepy sounds when one goes down them.

Anyway, ey go downstairs. 

The knocking persists. It sounds frantic and desperate and Ren begins to worry. Ey get this sinking feeling that someone  _ needs _ them, and the worst part is that ey have no idea who that person might be. 

People… stay with them, that’s what they do, in this weirdly big, Tim-Burton-shaped house. They provide a home when people need one, no matter how permanent or transient that person may be. 

It’s just that no one’s ever come straight to their door before. Usually this takes the form of a friend of friends, or a plea noticed on social media or, in a couple cases, someone quite literally found by a current resident. 

They’re beginning to garner a reputation. 

With that in mind, Ren opens the door. 

Ey’re not totally certain, but Ren thinks ey recognize the vaguely soaked-looking human (despite the fact that it’s still not raining here, yet) standing on the front porch. 

“Jung Jung?”

Ey definitely do not recognize, however, the taller and squishier-seeming one trying to hide behind probably-Jung Jung.

“Zhengting, it’s Zhengting now.” 

The words rush out of Zhengting’s mouth with the force of a flood, or maybe blood out of a wound. He seems desperate and, above all, relieved. 

“How the hell did you find our address did you come here from China what the fuck and who is this -” Ren lets spill. Ey have questions, dammit, and ey want them answered. Ey sigh. “Maybe come inside first.” 

“This is Justin,” Zhengting says. “My brother.” 

Ren, idiot that ey are, actually has to bite down  _ I thought you had a sister…? _ because, well, duh. “Come inside,” ey repeat. 

Justin obeys before Zhengting, actually. Ren has to comb through eir memory a little but this kid is, what, six years younger than Zhengting? Which makes him criminally young to have come all the way from China to live in this house. 

“I’m really sorry, I mean, I know it’s late, but my mom found out - and not just about me I mean if it were just me it would have been okay,” Zhengting rambles as Ren leads the brothers up the stairs to the fourth floor, where ey think exists an unoccupied room with two twin beds in it. “And I know it was stupid to just, just get on a train to Korea at who-knows-when in the morning on the off chance I had the right address for you but Ren, you’re family and I really need my family right now.”

Ren stops short. Eir heart hurts. Ey try and hold it in until they reach the third floor landing and then ey grab Zhengting and hug him really tight for a while. It isn’t until ey happen to look up and see Justin practically falling asleep standing there that Ren releases Zhengting and they continue upward. 

Ren sets one hand on Justin’s shoulder and one hand on Zhengting’s as ey guide the brothers into the room. Ey were in fact correct, the room’s unoccupied and has two separate beds. Ey should maybe go look for some sheets, though. 

The two boys drop their bags to the floor one after the other. Justin’s has something heavy in it that makes a sound implying maybe it shouldn’t have been dropped so unceremoniously, but the kid - he’s got to be, what, eighteen? - is so visibly exhausted that he doesn’t care. Ren aches for the kid, wants to wrap him in the same kind of hug he gave Zhengting, but. Boundaries. 

“Just gimme a sec to go find some sheets and then you can sleep,” Ren assures him. Zhengting pulls his little brother close, holding him up almost. Ren marches off in search of the linen closet ey know they have,  _ somewhere. _

Ey run into Chani, in eir search for the linen closet. “Tenants on the fourth floor,” ey say, as explanation for eir frantic jog down the stairs and then up again. (As if ey really needed to explain. Sleep can be a rare and elusive thing, especially in a house such as this, full of queer people with mental health issues or just plain bad memories.) 

Chani blinks, then repeats “Tenants?”, then worrystims near his face for a second, then goes back into his room. Then Ren remembers where they keep their fucking clean sheets. They don’t have a linen closet, they’re in plastic bins in the laundry room. 

Ren has to take a second in the laundry room. Sitting on the floor with eir head in eir hands, breathing, eyes clenched tight shut.  _ Ey knew his parents were bad but ey never - never wanted this for him - Justin is just a kid (ey were just a kid) (they had all been just kids) - _

Ey go back upstairs and make the beds quickly, getting one all the way done first and ey barely have to give Justin a nod before the kid collapses into it. Zhengting has to pull the covers all the way up. Outside, it thunders, and rain finally begins to fall on their roof. 

Ren and Zhengting keep mostly quiet as Ren makes up the other bed. Zhengting keeps looking at his hands. Ren keeps looking at Zhengting, who seems for some reason guilty. 

“...Don’t wanna go to sleep yet,” Zhengting says once Ren has stepped proudly back from eir second successfully made bed of the night. 

“Come back to my room, then,” ey say, smiling in a way they hope is welcoming. Ey stand up to just go and leave, and hope Zhengting follows em. 

Zhengting does follow, hesitant, and Ren closes eir door and gestures for the younger to sit on his bed. 

“Or, wait, no,” Ren backtracks. “Sit here.” Ey tap the floor gently and reach down under eir bed. For a box. 

“I don’t wanna bother you…” Zhengting says without warning. “I mean is this really okay? That I -” 

“Honey.” 

“They were gonna hurt him.” 

The words explode out of Zhengting’s mouth and Ren just freezes. 

“It would be fine if it were just me really it would but not Justin and I didn’t know what else to do and you were the only place I could think to go, I mean, fuck it.”

Ren sits on the floor, dumbfounded. “I didn’t know you knew that kind of language in Korean.” 

“I -”

“You’re not intruding.” Ey cut him off short. “You’re not. This is what we’re here for. You don’t have to justify yourself to me, or to any of the others.”

He looks like he’s going to cry for a second, but appears to bite it back and finally joins Ren on the floor. 

“What’s, um. What’s in the box?” he asks timidly. 

“You’ll see.” Ren opens it gently. It’s full of just crap - train tickets and receipts and clothes tags and Post-Its and torn up scraps of notebook paper. Ey have to dig around before ey find what ey’re looking for, but it doesn’t take em too long. 

It’s dropped into Zhengting’s lap unceremoniously. It crinkles as he picks it up. 

“This is from college,” he says slowly. Ren nods. “This is from… you bought, I - right before the semester ended.”

Zhengting stares. “You kept this.” 

“I’m a sentimental little bitch, what can I say.” 

Zhengting leans close into em like they’re twenty-one and twenty-two again, and Ren hugs him tight. 

“You’re right. We are family.”

_ a paper flag _

“Baby’s first pride!”

Dongho’s laugh bubbles out of him, like a windstorm, like a waterfall. His smile is big. And he’s painting Justin’s face, blue pink white pink blue on the cheeks. 

Justin shifts nervously. He’s not a  _ nervous _ kind of guy, hell he started coming out to people in China before even Zhengting did (course that’s because Qian Zhenghao was trans too and he’d trusted Justin first), and living in this crazy-ass house is basically like living at a pride parade 24/7, but this is  _ different _ . This is  _ June _ . 

This is Pride. 

Dongho is shirtless, his scars barely noticeable to Justin at this point because Dongho goes shirtless a lot, and he’s tied a rainbow flag around his neck like a cape. Justin had thought to ask earlier why wasn’t Dongho wearing the trans one, but the older man had just gestured down to the scars on his chest and given Justin a look like,  _ is it not obvious _ . 

“Besides,” he’d said. “People forget sometimes that the rainbow flag is for all of us.” 

God this feels weird. A year ago he’d have been hiding in his room or Zhengting’s room or at Zhenghao’s, listening to someone’s mom spew hate through the absurdly thin walls, wishing. Now he’s  _ here _ . In Korea with his brother (without Zhenghao), and he’s going to Pride. For real. Justin Huang Minghao is going to Pride. 

“You never totally get used to it.”

Dongho’s voice cuts through Justin’s stunned thoughts. He blinks up at the older man and lets out a garbled “huh?”. 

“Being here. At Pride. It’s like…” Dongho considers. “There was this girl I knew once, who started college spring semester, and every year until she graduated seeing autumn leaves on the trees just felt fake. Even when she went back for reunion. Pride’s like that, no matter how many years you go it just doesn’t feel real.” 

“Yeah,” says Justin. His Korean is shitty, so he can’t quite articulate just how much sense Dongho’s making to him. Then again, he’s not sure if he could articulate that in Chinese, either. Some things are just beyond language. 

Zhengting sticks close by him as they leave. “You stick close to Dongho, okay? Or, just, no - I mean you’re not a  _ child _ \- but, like, don’t go off on your own. Don’t get lost,” he amends. 

“Yeah, yeah,  _ gege _ , fine, whatever.”

Zhengting knows Justin loves him. 

Jonghyun has this beach bucket full of flags. Justin snatches one on impulse, almost, and sticks it in the mesh side pocket of his backpack. 

It’s not hard to get lost. Justin’s a foreigner and a fiercely independent eighteen year old, tall as he may be even before testosterone small in a raging rushing crowd of loud proud queers. He stops for one second - just one! - to get a picture, and then loses track of the group entirely. 

Shit. 

He looks around, frantically, but can’t see anyone the first bit familiar in the ever-changing sea of people marching around him. He’d try and shout their names but everyone’s shouting, here - fuck fuck fuck he doesn’t know his way around here at all, not really.  _ Justin doesn’t know where he is _ -

“Hey.” 

Justin startles. There’s a tall girl with hair Ren’d be jealous of standing next to him. She has a small smile on her face, and a flag like Justin’s own streaked across her face in finger paint. 

“You seem… overwhelmed. First Pride?”

“Yeah,” he says, because it is. 

Beat. 

“I lost the, um. My roommates,” he says. Roommates isn’t the right word, but his Korean isn’t great to begin with and it’s worse now because he’s gone and made himself all panicky. 

“Oh.” The girl’s face drifts further into the zone of  _ concerned _ . “Are they not answering your texts?”

His phone.  _ Fuck. _ Why didn’t it occur to him to just fucking text them. He whips it out and finds a text - just one, though from Jonghyun.  _ Let me know where you are. Your brother’s freaking out but I trust that you’re safe. _

“I’m Lena,” says the girl. “She/her.” She smiles. 

She’s pretty, thinks Justin. 

“Justin, he/him,” he answers. 

“Hey!” Someone else pops up behind Lena. “You wanna march with us?” 

Justin blinks. Lena laughs at her friend and explains, “this is Minjung.”

“Or Sunshine!” Minjung adds. “She or they, pretty please.” 

“Minjung’s all about the meeting-new-people thing,” Lena informs Justin. “Especially when they’re also trans.” 

Justin smiles, kind of awkwardly. Before leaving China, the only queer people he knew were his brother and Zhenghao. And now, well… he knows all these people, all of them queer, most of them living in a house with him, but they’re all, like, his brother’s age - and the ones on the younger side, like Chani or Vlada, are cis. They don’t get it. 

He wants to have friends - people his  _ own _ age - who get it. People  _ here _ like that, because Zhenghao’s back in China. 

He looks over at Lena and Minjung. Lena’s laughing as Minjung tries to get her short hair looking  _ just right _ , because “I’m going to send this selfie to my girlfriend and Yuchae’s never been to pride and I want to show her how good of a time it is but not  _ too _ good of a time because I don’t want her to feel too sad.” 

And he pulls out his phone and texts Jonghyun.  _ I’m fine. Tell him I’m fine. Just tell me where to meet you guys at the end and I’ll find my way there. _

“Sure,” he tells Minjung and Lena. “I’ll come with.” 

_ a showcase ticket _

“Our parents never came to these,” Zhengting tells Aron as the lights come back up. 

They both look over at Ren, who’s hollering at Justin same as any of the other proud parents in the audience of the university’s dance team showcase, waving eir arms in the air. Ey have a bouquet of flowers stashed in the car, too, and took video of the entire thing. Aron kind of wants to tell Ren to be a little more lowkey, because Justin isn’t the type inclined towards public affection (especially when the affection is as loud as Ren), but the sight is just so  _ domestic _ that he keeps his mouth shut. 

“Recitals, you mean?” Aron clarifies. 

Zhengting nods. “I mean, I did this in college too. They never… never showed. And he was young enough that they’d have had to drive him. I did showcases with nobody in the audience looking for me.” 

Aron reaches over and takes Zhengting’s hand. 

Aron’s seen Zhengting dance. He’s  _ good _ . And his movements ache with the desire to be seen and to be loved. He’s got star potential - same as Justin has. Except where Zhengting’s style is all grace and fluidity, Justin’s moves are filled with a different kind of desperation. Justin’s dance is angry, furious, constant movement funneled into the living breathing tornado that is Justin Huang Minghao when he’s onstage. They’re both fucking talented. 

The thought forms in Aron’s mind to tell Zhengting,  _ people were looking at you _ , but then the younger starts talking again. 

“I went to his, though. I mean, we’ve both done it for years so even when I was ten or eleven I was getting dragged out to watch him and his friends stumble through, like, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies or something, but even after our parents stopped going because we wouldn’t let it be something they could touch I still went. God his first recital after switching from ballet to hip-hop was something insane, I could just tell how much more he enjoyed it.”

“Of course you went. You’re his big brother. Siblings are supposed to do that.” Lord knows he’d been to all of Hannah and Grace’s shit long after he was really obligated to. 

“Especially cause I knew  _ they _ wouldn’t,” Zhengting mutters. 

“Come on come on come  _ on _ ,” Ren begs, distracting Aron from his general frustration with the world and his specific frustration with Zhengting and Justin’s parents. “I wanna go see him and give him a hug, god, guys do you think when I give him the flowers he’s gonna cry?”

Justin, as all three of them know, is a firm believer in the whole ‘boys don’t cry’ mentality. He wouldn’t cry over the flowers, not if someone paid him to do it. If someone paid him in testosterone, maybe. But that’d still be a hard maybe. 

Aron and Zhengting both sigh lovingly and, with silent agreement, stand up and acquiesce to Ren. 

“He hates this part,” Zhengting murmurs, smiling wryly at Aron. “The attention. I mean, he secretly loves it, but back when it was just me fussing over him he’d get all overwhelmed so I have no idea just how he’ll react when it’s Ren doing the fussing as well.” 

“Ren’s a lot,” Aron agrees. “In a good way, of course.”

“Ey’re like…” Aron can see Zhengting struggling to find the word, but he’s not sure if it’s a bilingual thing or an emotional thing. Either way, Aron relates. 

They see Justin emerge from the dressing room, changed out of his performance clothes and into a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and they see him immediately get charged by Ren, as Zhengting finally says, “ey’re really our parent, in a way. Like I mean, we’re really eir kids. Ey love us like we’re eir kids. All you guys really, but em especially.” He pauses. “It really means a lot to me that you two came. More to him, probably.”

The brothers have moved out now, sharing an apartment with Zhengting’s boyfriend that’s walking distance from the college campus where Justin’s now a freshman. But Aron still makes an effort to show up for them, like all the other people who’ve been in and out of the Love Lane house for any length of time, and he knows Ren does too, and all the others. (He knows, for example, that Hyewon had made it a priority to show Justin around campus and introduce him to other freshmen she’d taken one look at and decided she was their mom now. There’s a solidarity in just saying, “oh yeah, I used to live there” - an alumni network, maybe, if Aron wants to be flippant about it.) 

“We want to support you. We love you. You know that.” 

“Yeah,” shrugs Zhengting, “but it still means a lot.”

Justin is still trapped in a hug from Ren. 

“Maybe we should rescue him,” suggests Aron. 

“Gosh but you were just so good,” Ren rambles to Justin as the younger boy looks around like he’s embarrassed. No, scratch that - looks around because he’s totally embarrassed. Beside Aron, Zhengting snickers. “I don’t wanna let you go, my shining star! My fantastic Justin! My kid!” Justin blushes. Ren starts leading him back over to Aron and Zhengting, continuing, “I just wanna get you home and get you all loved up, Kyla made brownies and not even the weed kind, and we can get ice cream and do like sundaes or something, we gotta celebrate you!” Aron starts to laugh. “And I got you flowers, kiddo, they’re in the car and -”

Ren stops short and wraps Justin in a hug again, and Aron and Zhengting hang back in awe, because Justin has started to cry. 

**Author's Note:**

> there might be a fic of sunshine/uchae set in this verse but not a part of the series we'll see
> 
> if you liked this you can find me on tumblr @[everykissbeginswith](https://everykissbeginswith.tumblr.com/) or on twitter @[stillpristin](https://twitter.com/stillpristin)! please come say hi, i'm all about that making new friends shit


End file.
